Keep calm and call control...

Quick wrap up of things I've been doing this week.  As well as meeting Faculties, I've chaired a meeting of our Business Continuity Operations Group where we looked at a number things including how we respond to student occupations of our buildings, what emergency procedures the city has in place which might affect us, and a review of our major incident plan. We have a really good set of web pages about what to do in an incident, which everyone should be familiar with, and a neat little poster:

I've also taken part in a forum of Heads of Academic Departments and Director of Professional Services about how we should interact both with the University executive Board 9UEB), and with each other. Some very interesting discussions, and a general view that the current UEB/HoDS forum doesn't work well and can be improved. A set of recommendations will follow....

Finally, this morning I had a conference call with other members of the Steering Group for one of the JISC Co-Design projects which is looking improving the digital skills of staff in HE.   It's title is Building capability for new digital leadership, pedagogy and efficiency, and you can read more about it here. The project intends to provide clear guidance over what digital skills are required, and equip leaders and staff with the tools and resources they need to improve digital capability at a local or institutional level. This will cover all areas of the University - technology enhanced learning, Administrative processes, and research.

Enterprise, Mobility and Digital literacy

Last night I was honoured to be invited to the Enterprise, Innovation and Impact awards in Firth Hall. The hall looked lovely as usual, and it's nice to see the window at the front of the hall which until recently was bricked up. The awards recognise the enterprising nature of many of our students, and the partnerships we have established with local businesses. There were some great projects, including The Bear Sock company promoting socks made from bamboo, the sales of which go to  support bear welfare, We Love Life, a community platform which helps people improve the way they manage diabetes and Panela, a company extracting raw cane sugar without using additives. An excellent evening, and so good to see what our students can do. Lots more info on the Enterprise web site.

Today we had the first meeting of our SAP Mobility project bard. We're about to start implementing a range of mobile apps which give access to functionality from our finance and HR systems - viewing payslips, booking and approving leave, approving purchase requests etc. All things people want to do on any device, and fitting with our mobile strategy. Using Agile techniques, we'll be rolling apps out as and when they're ready, and consulting about priorities.

Finally this afternoon I met with a JISC colleague to talk about another JISC project I'm involved in - Building Capability for Digital Leadership, Pedagogy and Efficiency.  This is about digital literacy skills for staff in all areas.All staff need these skills to get the most out of systems and services we provide, to make the best use of teaching technologies, and to improve efficiency in our processes.  We all agree this is a real need, but how we will address and solve it is another matter. Answers on the back of a postcard please!

Innovation and ideas

Yesterday I was at a workshop run by JISC as part of their Co-Design programme, which involves a number of stakeholders working in partnership with JISC to agree on priorities and projects for innovation funding.


Our job yesterday was to come up with ideas - a very well run day, and a lot of good ideas came out of it. We started with challenges that we thought technology could solve, grouped them into themes, and then spent some time working on them in groups, refining and defining them.  In the end we had to produce elevator pitches for each, and pitch to the rest of the group - we came up with about 15 challenges, with defined outcomes and benefits - which finally we voted on. JISC will now work on them and come up with some suggested projects to take forward. The main themes in the groups I was involved in were around Digital Literacy and the Student Experience

Digital Literacy is vital for all staff. Academics need to feel comfortable with new technologies and the best pedagogic way to use them in their teaching. Professional support staff need to know how to use technologies to make processes and procedures more efficient, and all staff need to feel part of the community and conversation which takes place on social media. There's a wide range of digital literacy out there, with different skill levels, and there is a lot of work to do to ensure that everyone has the skills they need.

The student experience is important for so many reasons - for student satisfaction, for league tables such as those based on the NSS, to make students feel connected with the University. We need a digital environment that is fit for the 21st century which covers the whole student lifecycle from enquiry to graduation and employment. this is a huge project which could take in many things, including some of the issues around identity which I posted about after Tuesdays meeting.
Quite intense hard work,  but the view made up for it!

Today I was in Oxford for the Organising Committee of the UCISA Conference. UCISA14 only finished a couple of weeks ago, and we're already planning UCISA15 - and I'm now Chair of the group. The feedback from delegates which we got today confirms that is was very successful, and many said it was one of the best. So, we've got to follow it next year in Edinburgh.  No pressure there!